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There are a number of inescapable facts of life that recur time and time again in the design of computer games. Frogs, for example, hop. Likewise, wizards are well known for their alarming tendency to hurl spells at the drop of a pointy, starspangled hat.

One of the first of these natural laws to make its presence felt, way back in the stone age of computer games, was the fact that balls bounce. Since those far off days we've all played games with bouncy balls, and jolly good fun they've been too.

Hopping Mad is a game for one or two players in which the object is to guide a line of four bouncy balls through a number of locations scattered about the world and space.

Points are scored by using the balls to remove apples from trees and to pop the balloons that float into view. Ten balloons are required to move you on to the next level.

This is a game that's fun for a while, and which I'd recommend if it were a bit cheaper. I'm not saying it's a pushover, but during a coffee break I left it running on its own at level one and it reached level two quicker than I did.